"Go ahead."

CRACK.

"Missed. Favor left."

CRACK.

"Good hit, centered up nice."

CRACK.

"Uh… left hold, one mil wind."

CRACK.

"Missed it right. One point two wind."

CRACK.

"Elevation was good. We were right."

Peering down her scope, Ruby grinned at her at her targets with pride. Only, it wasn't for herself, it was reserved for Jaune. She looked beside her at her partner, who was still looking through a pair of binoculars downrange; it was a larger, more comfortable one than the compact pair she'd lent him awhile back. Simpler too, or at least, compared to the monocular and spotting scope she had stashed away back in their dorm.

"Awesome! You're doing great, Jaune!" she congratulated, beaming at him. He had been getting so much better as a spotter, and that made her really happy because he didn't actually have to do it, but he was—and she just really liked having him around. That made it worth the effort of ignoring her own honed instincts and going with the amateur call-outs, no matter how much it exasperated her at times. "You ready for another try?" she asked, turning back to look through her scope. But, she didn't receive a response.

"Jaune?" Ruby prodded again when his silence stretched on for way longer than she liked. She shifted from her prone position and looked over at him, only now noticing his expression as she did. His face was pinched slightly and turned to the side, as if something had caught his attention, though what would he have noticed in a training target or an empty range? It was just steel in the rough shape of people and grimm and no one else was around this early in the day on a weekend.

Unless… was Blake nearby?

She had a downright nasty habit of appearing from nowhere. Ruby glanced around furtively, wary of being caught unawares again by their teammate. When she saw nothing suspicious, she leaned over her partner. "What are you looking at—is it Blake?" she whispered, not wanting their leader to hear her just in case she actually was around; not that it would help much, as Ruby had found out the hard way.

Blake always seemed to hear whatever someone said, somehow, even when Ruby purposefully utilized places with elevated ambient sounds like Uncle Qrow said to do when she wanted to keep a conversation discrete on short notice. It seemed almost… inhuman, at times how much Blake could pick up on without even trying. Maybe she shouldn't be surprised at this stage anymore, especially when their team's leader apparently was the embodiment of all things stealthy and sneaky. Like a ninja! But… a particularly mean one.

She shook her head slightly, trying to clear her thoughts.

Jaune was still off in his own world, so with a mischievous smile, she rapped her knuckles on the pair of electronic earmuffs that adorned his head—just because aura could heal the damage didn't mean that it didn't still hurt—and matched her own; another borrowed item.

This time, she got a reaction out of him, his eyes flicking to hers.

Her smile widened into a grin at his expression when he jumped, and then she snickered as his startled confusion shifted into realization. "Welcome back to Remnant, Jaune."

For a second, he looked guilty, almost, but it quickly disappeared and in its place he gave her an apologetic smile. "Sorry," he told her, "I was just a little… too in the zone?" Jaune chuckled, awkward and stiff. His voice sounded strangely thick and Ruby frowned.

Was he okay? He certainly didn't seem okay.

"Ha, I've certainly been there," she laughed uncertainly. Was she pushing him too much? It was hard to tell. She knew that people people weren't quite the same as her. That things like this didn't click for them the same way it did for her. Guns, fighting, and putting things together were easy, but people were hard. He hadn't shown any signs of it bothering him before, and so she hadn't thought it might even be an issue in the first place. This was the first time that Ruby realized that she might have been erroneous in her assumption. She'd have to return to the drawing board and fix it.

But how?

Ruby wasn't sure. She never had much success when it came to matters of social interactions and the subsequent relationships that followed; sometimes they just went awry in ways that she couldn't predict. In fact, when she had first entered Signal, she'd had to ask Uncle Qrow, dad, and Yang for help merely to stay afloat. But, Uncle Qrow's advice to 'banter' with them just seemed to make people angry. Dad was pretty upset with her too until she informed him she was just repeating what her uncle had told her to say, and later, he said that she should just be herself—what did that mean anyway? She was always herself, and last she checked, cloning people was still banned by the Vytal Peace Accords, so unless Ruby had a twin out there somewhere…

Anyway! That big fat noddle-head was wrong. People started saying she was weird. Her fixations and shyness mixed together with what Yang had called "an unhealthy dose of social awkwardness" created a volatile concoction. While the professors thought it was a mark of excellence, other students seemed to think that she was too obsessive about things that, while she took to like a fish to water, they just didn't understand. Even the few that she had managed to get along with complained about odd behavior and how it was "creepy" that she was so cheerful all the time—not that it made sense to Ruby, because who made a fuss about people being happy? No one wanted to be around someone that might attract the Creatures of Grimm after all! Not that such a practical view changed their minds. They wouldn't go beyond those mild rebukes though and Ruby knew that, especially not with Uncle Qrow and dad being teachers at Signal, but they also didn't stop.

It had still stung more than she'd like to admit.

And then Yang took her under her wing, but by then it was already too late. Ruby's social reputation among her peers had been irrevocably marred by that first month's impression; she wasn't as naive as her sister liked to think. After that point in time, anyone that approached her, only did so for the opportunity to gain Yang's favor. It became normal, almost. She was used to it by now, and she knew it was never intentional on her sister's part.

That was simply how Yang was: much like the sun, people revolved around her.

So, she began working on her own solutions in addition to Yang's own shared social techniques. But, people were complicated, just like her lovely Crescent Rose, she came to conclude. Ruby needed a different methodology for every individual that she attempted to befriend—oh! And constant maintenance, with unique tools for every problem that arose, or they wouldn't work anymore.

But despite the same underlying principles, she still didn't have much success in her efforts and she had never been certain why that was the case. It was the reason why Ruby had grown to prefer the days spent alone working on raising her proficiency with Crescent Rose and expanding her repertoire of techniques, or with the heat of the bellows and cacophony of metal on metal in Signal's workshops to the companionship of people; sometimes, it was easier to act than talk.

That's why now she was sitting with Jaune as he looked through the binoculars in his hand once again, silent and introspective; she had been hoping that her time at Beacon would prove to be different—friends were supposed to bond over fun activities, weren't they? And while she knew that was the case theoretically, putting it into practice was difficult. She thought that this was fun, if exasperating at points when she sometimes had to stop her explanations to revisit an earlier topic to ensure he understood exactly what she was saying.

But, did he think that this was fun?

Ruby bit her lip. With his earlier reaction, she now had her doubts. Normally, she'd chalk this up to a loss and move on, but it was harder with Jaune. Because, he was Jaune. The one who had told her that "strangers were only friends that you haven't met yet," and cheerfully asked if she wanted to be friends with him.

Jaune was her friend.

And now the question remained: how could she fix this?

What sort of approach should she take, exactly—should she just plainly offer a new activity for them to do together? Like, perhaps going to the workshop and designing new weapons, or building something together. She had been meaning to do just that already in fact. Then again, Yang had always told her that weirded people out.

Maybe, however, she should just let him relax. It was the weekend after all, and he could simply want some time to himself; as Yang had also mentioned that people didn't like feeling overwhelmed by Ruby: something about how she was too intense and tended to make people nervous, especially whenever she pulled out Crescent Rose as a conversation starter.

Yes, that did sound like it made sense in this context. She hadn't really given him a break, had she?

She nodded resolutely and opened her mouth to speak: "if you want to go head and return to the dorm, I won't mind. I'm probably going to be here for awhile." Her voice cracked as she spoke, and she cleared her throat afterward. Okay, maybe she wasn't as resolute as she had thought.

"Huh?" Jaune asked, tilting his head in confusion as he looked down at her. "Oh, uh… did you want to be alone or something—actually, sorry, I just tagged along this time without asking, didn't I?"

Ruby swallowed and took a few steadying breaths. "Nah, I just thought that you might be bored." He had, in fact, done just that this morning. Sometime after the fourth inquiry Ruby had made in as many days, she had found Jaune up and ready, waiting for her in the common-room so that they could go to the shooting range.

"Oh. No, don't worry about it. I came with you today, didn't I? Anyway, I was thinking about some stuff from back home and got distracted."

"Okay," Ruby said simply, because for what reason did she have to do anything than take his words at face value?

Minutes passed and other than the call outs, they returned to practice in companionable silence.

He hadn't made a single move to leave.

She smiled.

"Hey Jaune."

"Yeah?"

"Let's switch."

"What?"

Ruby removed the empty magazine and lifted herself up from the ground, taking a moment to stretch before she answered him. "Switch spots with me. You can use Crescent Rose. Let's see if you can hit something."

His eyes widened. "Are you sure?"

"Yep," Ruby confirmed, popping the 'p' with an exaggerated grin. She stood and walked up to him, grabbing his arm. "Let's get started." Jaune looked like he wanted to protest, but ultimately acquiesced and shuffled along with Ruby's grasp as she dragged him next to her rifle, which she had left propped up by shooting bags.

As he settled down along the shooting mat and placed his hands on Crescent Rose, she noticed Jaune glancing nervously at her. She cocked her head to one side. "Everything alright?" The words masked her own unease as he adjusted the rifle; and the phantom sensations on the periphery of feeling made her skin crawl as the light of another soul encroached upon her own, even if only in part. She ignored it.

"Yeah! Yeah, everything's fine."

Exactly, it was fine because it was Jaune and she had offered, and she was given the same opportunity with Crocea Mors. If it were anyone else touching Crescent Rose then she would… she'd—well, she didn't know what she would have done, but it wouldn't have been pretty!

"Okay, ready?" Ruby prompted, holding her pair of binoculars that she had swiped from Jaune during the transition.

"Uh, yes."

She glanced around the range. First, at the wind flags. Then, her eyes traveled to the swaying grass and the leaves rustling in the treeline just beyond the berms and backstop. Ruby considered the breeze she felt brush past her face for a moment. It was about… a three-quarter value, four to six, maybe five to seven miles per hour.

She was pretty sure that Jaune wouldn't be up for targets past twelve-hundred yards, so… perhaps… around six hundred? Yeah, that sounded about right; enough to give him a challenge, but not impossible. A few seconds of mental math latter, and she felt confident enough to start.

Ruby gave one last look at Jaune and Crescent Rose before giving him the go ahea—wait.

"Relax your posture a bit. You're too tense, no one holds that still naturally. Try to uh, go with your body's own rhythm, if that makes sense." She watched with a critical eye as Jaune shifted around.

"Like this?"

"Yeah, like that."

"Okay."

That was something she might have to keep an eye on to prevent any bad habits setting in that would affect his shooting posture. She'd been told by Jaune that he'd had training in Domremy, as had been mandated for all citizens on the frontier; but truth be told, she wasn't quite sure what that entailed.

She was vaguely aware that Patch had similar requirements as it was technically also a frontier settlement, separated from the mainland as it was, and in case of an emergency, everyone needed to be able to fight, as was reaffirmed in the wake of the national disaster that was Mt. Glenn. However, her father and Uncle Qrow had been the only instructors that both herself and Yang had for as long as she could remember, until they were old enough to enter Signal at any rate. So, that was about the extent of her knowledge on the matter.

Ruby shrugged to herself.

Whatever. At least he'd been trained in the basics, which meant that she didn't have to spend time teaching him how to handle a firearm. Not that she wouldn't, but—Focus, Ruby, focus! The girl shook away the stray thoughts and returned to the task at hand. She checked the wind one last time and picked a target for him; taking some inspiration from Professor Port's assignment on grimm this week.

"Target, ursai to the right of the berm, behind foliage."

"Got it."

"Dial in eighteen point nine mil from your one hundred yard zero."

"Uh, up eighteen point nine."

"Slight left to right wind, dial in left, point eight."

"Dialed in left, point eight."

"Send it!"

CRACK.

Ruby paused, and then grinned. That had been close!

"Just off the right edge of target, hold left edge and re-engage. Spotters Up!"

"Aaaah…"

"Send it!"

CRACK.

"DID YOU SEE THAT SHOT!? Frick yeah! You got it Jaune!" Ruby cheered, pumping a fist triumphantly into the air. Who cared if she had to put some lien in the swear jar? This was definitely worth it.

"Uh..." Jaune stared blankly at her rifle, looking more bewildered than impressed, and Ruby couldn't help but laugh at Jaune's face. His odd mixture of surprise and awe and disbelief, as if he didn't believe he could actually do it, was almost adorable. That would show him to doubt her teaching prowess!

"Wow! I can't believe it. I mean, I actually did it..."

"Yep!" Ruby affirmed. "You did great!" she repeated her earlier sentiments, settling down onto the ground and crossing her legs. Mindfully, she rested her hands along the front of her skirt and pushed it down slightly.

Jaune seemed surprised by the praise and he slowly copied her, sitting upright and turning to face her. A moment later, he leaned forward, looking more at ease now. "So, what do we do now, switch back?"

Ruby hummed, leaning forward. She eyed Jaune closely, studying him; and when he looked up at her questioningly, she smiled brightly. "Not yet." Her eyes trailed down from his face, then roamed across his broad shoulders and chest. "I have something else in mind," she mumbled out, cheeks tinged pink. Her gaze landed and remained on the left of his torso, absent of it's typical covering. She knew what they could do next. It was something that had been on her mind for awhile, but first…

"So, Jaune."

"Yeah?"

Ruby bit the inside of her cheek as she stared. "You're… uh, you still haven't fixed your armor up yet after Blake messed it up, have you?" She wouldn't repeat her earlier mistake. Even if the assumption of her earlier assumption being erroneous had also been wrong that time, she'd still rather make sure that he was okay with it first this time. It was just the polite thing to do; and politeness had rules she could understand, even if she didn't always abide by them.

He blinked. "Um, no?"

"How about we stop by the workshop then?"

"Why? Are you planning on helping me out or something? Because if you are, you don't have to, it's really not necessary, and—"

"No!" Ruby held out a hand when Jaune opened his mouth to continue babbling on, cutting him off. "I… I want to help, okay?" And that was the truth; because friends were supposed to help each other, right? And putting things together was fun. It would be the best of both worlds. There was no other reason for it—there wasn't. Not the red hue that began spreading over a half-echoed overlay remembrance of plate torn asunder, nor the tightening of her heart that threatened to burst apart at the seams at the vivid evocation it brought forth to bear. No, not that either.

Jaune fidgeted uncomfortably under her stare, and Ruby realized, belatedly, that she must have looked somewhat unsettling. Oops. Cringing internally, Ruby tried to force a smile as she sat herself up straight and relaxed her gaze and looked away.

"Soooo..."

Still, Jaune hesitated.

"Please?" she pouted.

"But..."

Her eyes snapped back to him with renewed intensity, and she took a deep breath at the sight as he cleared his throat.

"Okay... alright, fine. And, ah, thank you. I guess?" he said after a moment, standing up and dusting his pants off. Her lips quirked upward at the edges after he relented. Yes, people were a lot like Crescent Rose, and Jaune was no different; Yang's advice, put into practice in a new environment, had worked.

Ruby did the same then, brushing off debris and smoothing out the ruffled fringe of her skirt, dyed a deep shade of ruby red that matched the crimson stains covering Jaune's torso; rivulets of carmine tinged droplets trailing down the left of his chest, a procession of vivid vermilion vital life-giving fluids that blossomed into bright red blooms of scarlet flowers as they splashed ephemerally at the end of their journey, touching upon the ground.

Silver irises gleamed as her pupils dilated at the sight; lips parted slightly as she sucked in breath after breath, a faint smile began to stretch across her face out of habit after she realized she dropped her last attempt at it—and she couldn't help but to remain looking at him, unblinking. Pretty, her mind whispered, and it was true. There wasn't a single word, or image, or dream, or feeling, or thought or emotion that could possibly compare to that breathtaking sight; to the extent that, for just a split second, she forgot where she was.

"My little rose…"

Just for that one second, all she could hear was nothing but that one heart-achingly familiar voice; all she could see was a silhouette of another person, a figure cloaked in what was once a pristine white, and now stained by—

"Uh, Ruby, your eyes, um… do they normally glow like that?"

At Jaune's words, Ruby's thoughts scattered back into the little box within her head where they belonged; and she snapped back to reality. She blinked, and the evanescent sanguine flowers vanished. She forced herself to let loose a breath she had unknowingly been holding. "Huh? Oh, I'm… yeah." Her cheeks burned. A blush spread across her skin and she quickly averted her gaze, glancing around awkwardly before returning to Jaune's concerned expression. "Sorry, uh… sometimes, especially when I get excited. It's… a… part of my… semblance, like how Yang's eyes turn red! Sorry if that caught you off guard though."

"Huh? Wait. So, it's hereditary?"

"What? No. It's just… a coincidence."

"Oh."

"Yep!" She rubbed her eyes, shooting him another small small that didn't quite reach the rest of her face.

Silence fell between the two of them, filled only by the occasional rustling of the leaves in the face of a particularly strong gust of wind. She glanced over to see Jaune staring intently at her, eyebrows furrowed once more and face drawn into a frown. Ruby shifted a little, uncomfortable under such scrutiny, but carried on without saying a word. Then, Jaune spoke. His voice came out soft, gentle; his tone quiet as if afraid that he would startle her. "Are you okay?"

The question took her by surprise, making her pause.

After a long beat, Ruby slowly turned back to face him in full, meeting his gaze with her own; silver against blue. "Me? Of course!" She cocked her head to the side and gave Jaune a puzzled look. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well… I guess…I thought—nevermind."

"Hey, you know what? How about we finish cleaning up so we can get going and fix that armor of yours!"

"Okay."

"Great!" Ruby cheered, striding forth to grab her weapon and clean the range with a skip to her step. "No time to waste, let's get started then!"

As the afternoon approached, Ruby had shooed away Jaune to grab his breastplate from their dorm after taking some measurements of his body. She put pen to lip and nibbled, thoughts racing across her mind. The designs she had sketched out in her sketchbook were… well, technically, they were designs of sorts, but it was more of a rough idea. A basic template, nothing fancy and nothing flashy, just something to start with.

However, it didn't have to stay that way.

There were all sorts of fun stuff she could integrate into it. Like passive cooling and evaporation systems; which might include spacer garments or moisture wicking materials. An active one might be too bulky. A hose and camel-back container would be pretty handy to have when trying to stay hydrated too. Maybe a built in radio and head-up-display inside the helmet? Oh! She definitely had to include a rangefinder and a laser designator in there somewhere. She paused. Actually, did Jaune even have a helmet? She hadn't seen him wear one. Or any other bits of armor beside the breastplate and spaulder, now that she thought about it.

And maybe something to carry extra ammunition for Crescent Rose—it would make sense since he didn't have a gun of his own, and after all, what's an extra two dozen pounds of weight between friends? Or, she could think bigger. You know, put some surface-to-air missiles on Jaune's back to deal with those pesky flying grimm.

Maybe… two? Or three? Three sounds better than one, right?

At that point, however, she should probably consider making an actual piloted armored suit of some sort to replace his boring old normal armor, like those prototypes that Atlas showed off a year ago. What were they called? Patlabors? No, maybe Paladrones? Hmm… Paladins! Yeah that was it. She could do that and then she wouldn't have to skimp out on anything. It was a good plan, and she was certain it would work—she steadfastly ignored that she hadn't the slightest bit of knowledge in the field of robotics, and she wasn't quite sure where she'd get the missiles from either—and, if it didn't, well, she'd figure something else out. The possibilities were endless.

Ruby shook her head, clearing that runaway train of thought. Those were all long term plans, the sort of things that she needed to get Jaune's opinion on. Besides, she figured that he'd want to stick to the classics anyway, considering Crocea Mors and whatnot. Speaking of his weapon though: she would have to make sure that the more detailed designs she'd sketch out later wouldn't clash with its appearance either. Perhaps she could take inspiration from something his ancestors had previously used?

She was pretty sure that there was a statue of an Arc somewhere on Beacon's campus that she could use for that purpose, and failing that, the library had plenty of history books. Or, she could just get Jaune to come up with some ideas of what he might want it to look like.

Jaune.

Goodness, where was he?

He was taking forever to get back.

She tried to use the time to picture his breastplate and recall the exact extent of the damage that Blake inflicted upon it, but despite her efforts, she didn't remember much of note. She knew it was on the left side of the formerly pristine white piece, rather large, and that it had been quite stained by the—red—blood—like—spilled—roses—from Blake's attack.

SNAP.

Ah, the pen broke. That wasn't good. Now there was ink all over her hands. Ugh, and now she'd have to restart from scratch. Well, at least it was only half an hour of brainstorming and some quick doodles. It was going to suck, but it wasn't the end of the world.

Her mind wandered back to her last thought; namely, that depending on how well, or not, Jaune maintained it after the fact, she might have to deal with corrosion from rust. That sort of thing could really take a toll on the material, depending on what it was made out of, and seeing as how she didn't in fact know the exact composition of the material, it could be anything from brittle fractures to simple flakes and other aesthetic damage or everything in-between.

Her ink-stained fingered tapped across the metal desk before her for a brief moment.

Repairing plate armor that was both damaged in that manner, and with the large tear, would be cost-inefficient and time-consuming. Ruby would have to not only be mindful to avoid deteriorating the heat treatment the rest of the metal had already gone through, but to match the patch of new metal to the rest of the plate. Then on top of removing the rust and mending the gap, she would have to at the very least, restore the decorative layer of lacquer to the affected areas—maybe even add a second layer of protective enamel on top of that.

What's more is that she wasn't even sure if the armor was infused with dust or not, and if it was, what type of dust. That was something she'd have to spend hours attempting to figure out on her own through the workshop's more specialized equipment if Jaune didn't know, but considering everything that had happened recently, she wanted to ensure that his armor was strong and tough enough to take a blow from aura-enhanced weaponry, no matter how much of a headache it would be. Although, if she was being realistic with herself, it would be better to just scrap the whole thing and start anew.

Which she was planning on doing… eventually. But, for now, it was a necessary short-term evil until she could flesh out the details of a full set of plate armor with Jaune and make something more permanent. Ruby wouldn't be content with it otherwise.

This was going to be challenging, and not necessarily in the fun way.

She suddenly stood up and headed for the door, red petals left gently drifting to the ground behind, only to be surprised when it opened seemingly of its own volition before she could reach it—Jaune had returned without warning and Ruby almost jumped back at the sudden shock of it.

He seemed startled himself as he caught sight of her, blinking a few times and shifting around something bulky in his arms. He immediately relaxed afterwards, but looked at Ruby curiously from where he stood in front of the open door. "Ruby! Hey, sorry to keep you waiting," he apologized. "Professor Port was… well, I ran into him—literally—and somehow we ended up in a conversation about grimm. He wouldn't stop talking."

She snorted, now that wasn't hard to believe; Professor Port could go on for hours without ever running out of things to say, as he had proven in class often enough.

"I have the armor with me though," he said, holding up the object for emphasis. "I grabbed it from the dorm beforehand. I, uh, left it next to my bed like I thought. So… I guess that's my mission accomplished, huh?"

Ruby tilted her head quizzically before realization struck her. The breastplate, that's right, he was supposed to bring that back so she could figure out what to do with it. "Yeah, I guess so. Did anything else happen?" she asked, looking him up and down. "You're okay, right?"

"Huh? Yeah. I'm fine, why?"

"No reason!" Ruby quickly responded, waving her hand dismissively before giving a small smile. "Anyways, now that you're here with that we can really start. Place that down on the table over there," she pointed next to the open ink-stained sketchbook and broken pen; to which he raised a questioning eyebrow that she paid no mind to.

After a brief moment of hesitation, he nodded and carefully deposited it on the table next to where the other items lay scattered.

"Say, Jaune…"

"Yes, Ruby?"

"What are your thoughts on piloting a giant robot?"

Ruby set aside the many books and papers, scattering them around her study desk. When that still didn't clear enough space, she settled for plopping her freshly made blueprints atop the most prominent of those, The Fairy Tales of Remnant: A Collection, covering it from view.

The blueprint in question contained technical drawings of the proposed structure, the relevant surrounding area, and their exact dimensions. Her notes had the specific tolerances of the materials used and how everything was to be assembled to provide the most structural integrity possible. This was a work of genius. It took her a solid day to compose it—even longer than usual since she was being extra careful to make sure everything matched up.

She had dotted her i's, crossed her t's, and had triple checked both her measurements and calculations.

Ruby even had Professor Mulberry sign off on it! She dared them to tell her no after this—and of course they didn't. Or rather, two of her teammates had already taken a look at her insistence and given their assent. Jaune had been the easiest to convince so far. So much so, that she hadn't even needed to nag him about presenting a united front as partners, much. Pyrrha was a harder sell, taking the combined efforts of herself and Jaune, but she too had eventually relented when presented with Ruby's magnum opus on bunk beds and a few choice words about how it would increase team cohesion; she had even admitted moments after the fact that she was curious about the novel experience it presented.

Now, she just had to wait for Blake to show up. Jaune and Pyrrha were already in the dorm with Ruby, the former studying right beside her, sitting at his own desk, and the latter on the couch watching some mistralian show that Ruby wasn't familiar with.

All three of them were lounging in their pajamas, comfortable as could be.

She glanced at her scroll, bouncing her feet beneath the desk. Minutes passed and time continued its inevitable march forward; a half hour went by and still nothing came of it. Where was Blake? It was late. Another twenty minute had passed with no sign of her teammate, and Ruby had long since returned to reading about The Warrior in The Woods from the collection of fairy-tales she had top of on her desk.

Finally, after fifteen more minutes, just past midnight, she heard the door click open.

Ruby immediately put the book down, abandoning it to instead shoot up to her feet and swipe the blueprints she had set aside as she rushed toward Blake with a grin settling upon her face. Red petals fell in her wake, littering the ground and both her desk and chair, but she paid no mind to that.

What should she say?

How should she ask?

Should she even bother?

Ruby stopped short once she reached her team leader, the other girl merely starting at her with her amber eyes. After a moment, Blake stepped inside, closing the door behind herself with a soft 'clunk.'

"Ruby," Blake nodded to her. "Pyrrha, Jaune. Our team will be on watch for the rest of this week, on one hour shifts before we switch off with another team in the dorm. I took a look at the schedules earlier, and Professor Goodwitch will be assigned to our rotation on the first three days of the week; we'll have to report to her at the start and end. It would be… in our best interests that each of the three days remain uneventful in light of that."

"Yes, Ma'am," Jaune answered immediately, saluting smartly from his new seat on the couch as a ways beside him, Pyrrha gave a slight nod of assent as well.

Blake turned her attention to Ruby.

"Ruby, was there something you required? You did rush up to greet me, did you not?"

Ruby hesitated.

She looked down to the paper in hand, only to feel it bunched and crumpled in the fist she'd unknowingly made. For a good while, she simply stared at it blankly, unsure of what she ought to do next. And when she awkwardly looked back up, she felt the weight of Blake's expectant gaze upon her as her team leader patiently waited.

Still, she did not speak.

A slow, knowing smile crept across Blake's lips as she looked at Ruby as if she held some insight that Ruby did not, and then she merely hummed before turning and walking away to their shared bedroom, leaving Ruby frozen in place wondering if she'd missed her opportunity.

"Wait!" Ruby called out after her, finally snapping out of her stupor and rushing to follow after Blake.

Blake turned around, prompting Ruby to halt several paced behind. But she soon noticed the other girl holding out her hand towards the open doorway of the bedroom, palm facing upward. "If you would, Ruby. I'd prefer to sleep sooner rather than later."

Ruby blinked a couple of times before slowly unraveling and smoothing out the blueprint she had painstakingly created, and placing it in Blake's outstretched hand.

"Okay," Blake said simply after taking a short look.

However, Ruby wanted it to be absolutely clear in no uncertain terms. "… does this mean that we can have bunk beds?"

"Yes…" Blake sighed, "you can make bunk beds."

The smile she'd had plastered upon her face the entire interaction widened; a veneer of happiness coating her lips. This time it might have even been real. "Thank you!" Ruby practically yelled, and without missing a beat, she turned on a lien and bolted down the way she had come, returning to her desk. In record time she'd gathered the items atop it and sorted them away, all the while muttering excitedly under her breath about the possibilities ahead.

Once done with that, Ruby began her trek back to the bedroom. She was almost halfway there, however, when she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. "I want the top bunk!" Ruby exclaimed, pointing at Jaune.

Even if it was too late to put the bunk beds together right at this moment, it was never too early to lay claim to the top bunk either.

For a moment, after he turned around, his eyes seemed to flicker between Ruby and the bedroom behind her. Then he broke into laughter, clutching his sides. And though Ruby did get a kick out of seeing her partner so thoroughly amused—even if she wasn't sure of the reason why he was laughing—she was entirely serious about getting the top bed.

She narrowed her eyes at him as his guffaws carried on without any end in sight, and in fact, seemed to only double after she had crossed her arms.

Eventually, he managed to calm himself enough to answer her with a shake of his head. "Of course you do. Alright, sure. That works, Ruby, go ahead," he grinned.

"Good." She nodded firmly, then promptly darted through the door and onto her bed, ignoring the sight of Blake reading in the dark upon her own mattress and not at all asleep like she'd said she would be. The blanket was pulled up and over her head and she folded over herself, nose nearly pressed to her knees. Then, with her head resting against the side of the cool pillow, her body sinking into the soft material below, she closed her eyes.

Peaceful, blissful rest awaited her; and come night, she'd dreamt of nothing except the world, quiet, but for the screams that haunted her every unconscious moment. They cried and pleaded and begged and shouted and it echoed throughout the city as the walls crumbled around them, but Ruby ignored them. She ignored the the people dying around her, she ignored the tug of her arm by her sister, she ignored the screeching of metal and the loud crashes of falling debris, and she ignored the tears pouring down her cheeks.

All that she could focus on were the sea of flowers that spilt forth from her mother's broken body where it fell upon the ground; pristine white stained the color of her namesake, iconic ivory insignia of a rose battered and torn aside, sullied by striated streaks of sanguine when her mother's head hit the ground, once, twice, three times in quick succession and spilled—

She woke up.

The color burnt upon her eyelids yet still; she couldn't see, but for that which was red as roses. The air was hot and sticky and her lungs ached as they heaved for air. A moment later, she found herself staring into the near total darkness of her room.

It took Ruby a few seconds to realize that she was sitting up. Her ears strained, listening for some indication that someone else was awake, but she quickly realized that it would be futile. Not even a whisper could be picked up, nor could she make out a single hint of movement within the width of her vision at all; and not the familiar tell-tale yellow of her sister either.

Where was Ya—Beacon. Ruby was at Beacon, and Yang had her own dorm now. That was right. They weren't at Patch any more. This wasn't Yang's room, and Ruby hadn't sneaked into her older sister's bed again. Yang wasn't here. Dad wasn't here. Mom wasn't here. No one was here. No one but her.

The silence stretched endlessly around her, suffocating her in an instant.

There was an odd feeling within her chest, an urge to vomit rising in her throat but not quite making its way outward; instead, it stayed there, refusing to rise. Instead, her gaze drifted away, following the shadows across the wall until it eventually settled upon a window, where a sliver of moonlight peeking into the room could barely be seen.

You have silver eyes.

The words came to her mind unbidden, and she flinched. With careful, trembling fingers, she rubbed gently at the corner of one eye, her nails scraping the skin of her eyelids with sharpened edges that her aura blunted. There was an uncomfortable pressure beneath her eyes, a dull burning sensation; a constant throbbing ache she could not quite ignore.

But for the moment, that pain was just a distant echo, already faded from her mind and swept aside as sleep beckoned her once more; and she heeded the call. As she watched the small slice of white light dance along the glass plane, she let her eyes drift shut as her breathing grew slower and deeper whilst she meandered to dreams anew.

Yes, dreams.

They bloomed bright, vibrant, full, and perfect; an endless bouquet, and all across the unconscious world, it was red. A constant procession of vivacious, colorful, wonderful death that filled her lungs with an acrid iron sweetness, their stems weaving between her ribs and making the breathless gasp for air impossible.

Dreams of red, like roses, they danced and twisted through the air. Dreams, the color of which splashed upon her face; and dreams, as she had but a scant moment ago, stained with the realization—it was Summer Rose's blood that spilled to the ground.

There was no such thing as a nightmare, when compared to the agony of every waking moment without her mother.

FFN ate my formatting. I did my best to fix it, however, if you noticed anything odd, please mention it.